<p>This was not just Lauren’s fault, it was everyone’s fault.</p>
<p>If you guys had been working on it for so long, so often, why did it not get finished until 4:30 AM on the morning that it was due?</p>
<p>You all could have made sure everyone was awake before class, seeing as you were up so late, which I assume did not happen. </p>
<p>I don’t think the professor was unfair at all, but you should have gotten him to let you at least present, but it doesn’t sound like you tried to have him let you.</p>
<p>Well, OP, lessons learned, I hope. In real life – for example, work in the adult world – there are very few solo projects. Almost all work is done in conjunction with other people, and often the team sinks or swims on the performance of one. You learn to try to anticipate what could go wrong and prevent it, and deal with unanticipated snafus. Here are some lessons I’ve learned the hard way:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Schedule the entire project so that it’s done a day or two before the deadline. This gives time for the inevitable last-minute problems, and ensures that you’re all fresh for the presentation. </p></li>
<li><p>When there’s a late night or early wakeup involved, set multiple alarms (when I have to get up at 3:30 am to take my D to the airport, we set three alarms EACH). (And I know that you’re not the one who overslept, but learn from Lauren’s mistake.) Agree to touch base with each other early in the day.</p></li>
<li><p>If you see a problem developing, be proactive. Instead just waiting around to hear from Lauren, you should have called her 10 or 15 minutes BEFORE class – “Just checking to make sure you’re on your way.” Instead of just accepting her texted excuse, you should have called her back immediately – “What the #@%# do you mean you’re showering? Get the #@%# over here NOW!!”</p></li>
<li><p>Understand that the boss is the boss. The boss gets to make the rules, and you have to live by them, no matter what you think of them. Often bosses are more understanding than yours was – but it’s not something you can count on. Assume that they mean exactly what they say.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I had someone abandon me on a project before, but it was a semester long project which involved about 10 hours per week of time spent in the professor’s lab, as well as a poster and an individual paper. I’ve never had a professor give a group paper grade, that seems like it would be completely pointless.</p>
<p>Anyway, my partner (randomly assigned) stopped showing up to class or coming to the lab to help. I didn’t let it faze me and just doubled my efforts, showing up to the lab for 20 hours per week. I made the poster by myself when everyone else was in groups of two or three, and presented it by myself. I did not put her name on the poster because she contributed absolutely nothing to the project. My professor did not object.</p>
<p>I ended up getting an A+ in the class, and I had a lot of fun with the lab work. I don’t know what grade my partner got, since I never saw her again, but she contacted me over Facebook asking for some of the information she needed to write the final paper (she had been emailed the data we got by the professor, but she had no idea what methods had actually been used in the lab, having not been there herself.) I sent her the information, seeing as it was after the due date anyway. When I saw her Facebook page she had lots of pictures of her partying and not much else. I’m glad I had a professor who knew that if you have a faulty group member, you don’t let them ride your coattails, you kick them off of them.</p>
<p>Never trust anyone else on a group project. You should have kept the project overnight yourself, called her earlier, called her back immediately after receiving her text, ran over to her place and grabbed the project, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t know if business is any different, but I’m going to be a scientist. I’m hoping someone who made absolutely no contribution to a project would not be an author when it’s published. I don’t know if this is always the case, and I’m sure there’s plenty of politics, but pretty much I’d say just avoid business like the plague because to them individuals mean nothing. Giving the whole group the same grade is just completely moronic. No wonder our country is so screwed up if this is how businesses are run. This sounds more like communism than capitalism to me.</p>
<p>Chandi, if you’re under the impression that scientists do their work in a vacuum – no contact with anyone else, no reliance on other employees, no accountability to bosses – you’re sorely mistaken.</p>
<p>I have no problem with working in a team with people. But unreliable people should lose their jobs. Everyone else shouldn’t be forced to pick up their slack while they can get paid to do nothing. I have a problem with giving everyone the same grade when clearly not everyone did the same amount of work. I don’t know what you think I’m saying, but we do have to be accountable to bosses. To mean that means that if someone’s slacking, you do all of their work and as much work as you humanly can to make sure the project gets done, but make it clear to the boss that that was what happened. If the boss is halfway competent it should be obvious to them who the slacker was, like it was to my professor, and the slacker should get fired.</p>
<p>I love working with a team in the lab, but there’s a reason lab reports are always individual, not just one per group.</p>
<p>Lauren isn’t sorry, she said she overslept and when we called her out she said it’s unfair to get mad at her for that because it could happen to anyone. She said she’d worked hard on the project and she didn’t know what else we could want from her.</p>
<p>I’m considering dropping the course because this is horse ****.</p>
<p>That’s such an immature response. She should take responsibility for her actions. If she truly worked hard on that project, she obviously would have cared about getting it in on time, and hence she wouldn’t have overslept on the day that it was due. It isn’t “unfair” of the rest of her group members at all to be upset at her for it.</p>
<p>That being said, I still just don’t get how on the day your group presentation was due, you let a group member say “Sorry, I’m taking a shower instead of coming to class with the visual aid we had to create for our group presentation that’s due today.”</p>
<p>Regardless of what she /says/, I’m sure she feels really stupid for her decision and is just as upset about her grade and what she did to you two. Still, a mature person would have responded differently. </p>
<p>Perhaps something else happened and the shower bit was a lie? Who knows…just don’t ever end up working with her again if you can help it. Is it better in this case to take a W than the grade you’ll end up with?</p>
<p>It really sounds like the prof is being a hardas5 to me. The little libertarian inside of me says that everyone should held accountable for what is their responsibility, but when your group member is the cause of your failure and you have no control over it, that ****es me off. For all this prof knows, she was trying to sabotage your grade! </p>
<p>I’m in high-school so I hope this doesn’t annoy anybody, but how often are group projects assigned in college relative to HS? Does it depend on your major? WHich majors have more group projects? I thought I was done with that garbage…</p>
<p>Wiscongene - I had at least one group project in almost every course I took in college, from freshman year through senior year. That included psych courses, English, religion, statistics…they had us doing all kinds of presentations. The courses that didn’t do projects often did peer discussion groups in-class. I never had an experience as terrible as the OP’s, but I did have some pretty lame/dead weight partners. So I was the type to do most of the work myself to ensure it was done properly.</p>
<p>“she said it’s unfair to get mad at her for that because it could happen to anyone”</p>
<p>No, it couldn’t happen to anyone. Because most people would be smart enough to skip taking a shower so that they could go to an important presentation.</p>
<p>“she didn’t know what else we could want from her”</p>
<p>Well she could have offered to skip the shower part.</p>
<p>Basically, when you got that text, you should have been like “<strong><em>? showering? No, you get over here right now”. </em></strong> deserves to be slapped for being that dumb.</p>